


relearning fear and purpose

by tattletold



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Ferdibert Week (Fire Emblem), M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Minor Character Death, Vampire Ferdinand von Aegir, erotic neck biting, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tattletold/pseuds/tattletold
Summary: Hubert watches as the stranger’s lips pull back in an angered snarl. His struggling immediately ceases, blood freezing in his veins as he catches sight of two long, pointed teeth coming out from behind his lips.“If you have no concern for your life, then allow me to take it for you.”
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 7
Kudos: 157





	relearning fear and purpose

**Author's Note:**

> please listen this is so important i love edelgard so much but for the purpose of this fic she kind of is dead im not a bad ferdibert stan i love her with all of my heart and it pains me please dont write me as one of those shitty edelgard haters and know how much pain it puts me in
> 
> anyways, vague interview with the vampire au

“Why have you given up?”

It is a complex question, as much as it is simple. Anybody could garner from just a glance of Hubert, laid out with his back to an old ship between barrels of decaying bait and fishing nets that he has no intention of seeing the rest of his life through properly. His hair is mussed, his clothes torn from battle as his wounds cycle through scabbing over and being tugged open with any small movement.

He has no reason to respond to a stranger, especially not one asking such personal question. But when Hubert lifts his eyes, following the line of expensive heeled boots up a fine overcoat and to his intruder’s face, he finds himself momentarily lost. It is dark on the shore tonight, the only light coming from the moon and what few lanterns fishermen have lit as they return from their boats to go home to their pretty wives. And yet somehow, even though the details of the stranger’s face are obscured in darkness, he feels as if he can see his eyes. And he feels as if he is being stared through.

“My Lady,” he chokes out with a voice that has not been used properly in days. Hubert takes a shaky breath, eyes unable to leave the figure looking down on him in his pathetic stupor. “My Lady… has been killed.”

“And there is no merit to life without your woman?”

“She is not my  _ woman _ ,” Hubert growls. Fueled by a sudden burst of anger brought on by the memory of his most respected, most beloved leader, Hubert lurches up to unsteady knees in an effort to stand. It is only an effort, though, as his shaking, injured legs immediately give out beneath him as he tries to stand.

And yet, he is brought to his full height anyways, not on the strength of his own body, but a pale hand that suddenly grabs him by the neck.

There is not enough force in his body to fight back, Hubert realizes with a rush of adrenaline as he is easily lifted off of his feet, now looking down on his aggressor. But at this angle, with his head lifted up to watch Hubert, he can finally see the face of the man illuminated by the moonlight. His features are fine, a vision of more than mere beauty. He is not a diamond in the rough, more an unmarred, miraculous siren in the midst of a town of dirty beggars and lepers. His bright orange hair is tied low at his back in a ponytail that Hubert should have noticed before, but now that he is able to see him fully, there are more shocking features that capture his attention.

Like the dark red  _ eyes _ staring up at him. They are unnatural. The paleness of his skin, the temperature of the fingers wrapped around his neck, oh, how it all sinks in with shocking clarity that Hubert has not possessed in days now.

“You do not value your life?” the man asks, and for someone who has simply stumbled upon an injured man on the pier, he sounds remarkably angry. No, worse–he is  _ enraged _ . “You who are capable, who still possesses a heart that beats and legs that can walk, a mind that can think and a tongue that can speak, and you would throw it all away because your Lady has gone?”

“Let me down, you–”

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Instead, the stranger, this  _ fiend  _ steps forward and slams Hubert back into the side of the ship he was previously leaned against. He can hear the old wood crack beneath his back under the force, and he merely prays the sound was not his spine. The hand on his throat has constricted, tighter even, until Hubert cannot breathe. He tries to kick out, and he hits the man–but of course it would be useless.

Hubert watches as the stranger’s lips pull back in an angered snarl. His struggling immediately ceases, blood freezing in his veins as he catches sight of two long, pointed teeth coming out from behind his lips.

“If you have no concern for your life, then allow me to take it for you.”

In one fluid motion, the hand slides beneath his jaw, baring his neck so the man, this creature can step closer until their bodies are pressed together. With Hubert’s feet dangling off the ground, he is at the perfect height for the man to nose along his throat, and the breath that ghosts over his skin is  _ cold _ .

Hubert had once believed he knew what monsters were. They were in the churches, the high councils and government offices. They preyed upon the weak and vulnerable. They took for their own, and battered those who would so much as lift a finger of doubt against them. It was for this very reason his Lady Edelgard had begun her revolution against them, and he had never been more certain of a cause, of a goal in his life. Without it, now he has nothing.

But he is no fool to debate semantics with himself in these, his last moments. Because even with the hatred in his heart and all the disgust he has for those responsible for his Lady’s death, even he can recognize the truth of the world that has been made clear to him now.

Monsters, true monsters, roam the earth.

They are beautiful, cold as stone, and will corner their prey in the weakest of states. Their strength is overwhelming. Their presence commanding.

And yet, even when they grow close, as aggressive and superior as they are, their hands will grow soft on the neck of their meals. They would run a cold, smooth thumb along your jaw, almost soothing, before their fangs pierce your skin.

Hubert bristles, eyes going wide at the overwhelming pain that rips through his body, suddenly of the strength to continue kicking his legs once again. It doesn’t deter his aggressor, though, who presses him even harder into the side of the ship, his teeth buried deep in Hubert’s neck. From the waist up, he cannot move, his hands useless as they try to pry the man away from him, his head lolled limply to the side.

“Please,” he manages to whisper with what feels like is the only remaining breath in his lungs. The monster’s teeth press harder, making Hubert cry out in anguish. It is odd, how so suddenly, in a matter of mere moments, he has been introduced to an emotion that has been absent all his life. Something so raw, so primal that it makes his body spasm with useless motions that consume his energy foolishly in any effort to escape, something he should have felt, something that tears through his body more painfully than the blood leaving his neck. “Let… go…”

_ Fear _ .

At once, Hubert’s spotty vision is turned upside down, and in his muted hearing he can make out the crash of wood as he is dropped onto the ground.

He scrambles to sit up, clamping a hand over his neck where blood pours out in two steady trickles. It is as if he is breathing for the first time, and he realizes now that air has a taste sweeter than ambrosia as it fills his raw lungs. He is terrified. He is horrified, and as he sees movement in front of him, he finally registers that the monster has not left.

But when he looks up this time, he sees a completely different scene before him. The creature has stepped back, allowing more light from behind the ship looming over them to cascade over his features that appear… softer, now. As if like a siren shedding her selkie skin, he has become a man once more, even though his eyes remain as red as the blood that smears his lips.

And, oh, his lips.

The man smiles at Hubert’s pathetic state on the ground and crosses an arm over his chest, holding his hand over his heart. His hair blows with the breeze that rolls off the sea, and Hubert thinks it has never smelled so lovely in his life.

“Please,” the man says, his voice soft and kind as bells. “Never lose sight of that hunger for life again. Even when despair takes hold of you…” He steps forward and Hubert immediately flinches, too weak to move away as the man before him kneels in front of Hubert and reaches for him again. This time, his hand lands on his cheek, gently caressing the side of his jaw.

Hubert could not look away from those eyes if he tried.

“I can assure you it is preferable to wait awaits on the other side.”

He turns, and with a flourish of his cape, the monster-turned-man (or man-turned-monster?) disappears down the dock. Hubert follows his silhouette with his eyes the entire time, not moving until he has disappeared into obscurity among the masses of the pier. He watches, enraptured and afraid, as he meanders with the common folk, waving to fishermen and merchants as if he were part of the community he preyed upon.

It is an hour before Hubert is able to stand. He looks down the dock with renewed senses, noticing new things he had never once paid attention to. Faces he recognizes, the markings of the wood that make up the dock, the smell of the baker’s as they close shop for the night, and the cold breeze that nearly freezes the sweat seeping through his clothes.

He wonders if something as simple as living has always been this over stimulating.

He wonders if he had merely forgotten.

But that night, he returns to his home and sleeps more peacefully than he has in years, not waking until the sun has long since risen and day is at its highest hour. There is a different world waiting outside his door, and for all of its newfound beauty, Hubert cannot help but find himself searching for orange hair and fine heeled boots.

* * *

In three years, he has a new name for himself.

He works as a fisherman, keeping close watch of the docks each night and sleeping through the day. The others in the village who found him intimidating and fearsome at first appreciate him now, given there is a new sense of security that allows the laypeople to wander the pier at night. It is good to do good, he decides in his simple work, and while it may not be as fulfilling as the purpose he once had, there is still a goal he is working towards.

Perhaps ‘working’ is the wrong word. He stands at the end of the dock, watching ships sway in and out of the pier with the waves, lantern in hand.

‘Waiting’ may be more accurate.

Waiting for the simple sound of heels on old wood. Waiting for the salty breeze to carry a new scent. Waiting for a sunrise tied with a ribbon on a man’s back to flow in the wind, nearly obscuring his dark red eyes.

Hubert blinks, unsurprised when in a mere moment of inattention, a figure has appeared at the end of the dock. His dark cape is whirled in the breeze behind him, much like a crooked finger beckoning Hubert closer. The figure does not move, and so Hubert takes the first step.

“It has been difficult for me to come out these nights,” the familiar voice says, bright and fond as bells. “What with new security keeping watch of these parts.”

“I wish to know.”

“You know not of what you ask.”

“Show me, what awaits on the other side.”

“If it is death you crave, I will not stop you from throwing yourself from this dock with a stone strapped to your chest.”

Hubert stands tall–taller than the other man, he notices offhand as he steps even closer. He is not the same person who hid in the shadows of barrels and nets simply waiting for death to take him.

He has sought death out personally, this time, pursuing the darkness openly.

“I do not wish to die,” Hubert says confidently. “I wish to know your name.”

The stranger smiles, an almost sad thing as he tilts his head to the side. “An arguably worse fate.”

“According to who?”

“According to me.”

“You have been alone for a long time?”

“Oh, something like that.”

Hubert holds out his wrist, sleeves unbuttoned up to his elbow. He can see the man’s eyes trace the pale skin of his forearm with the motion. With his other hand, he unsheathes a dagger at his hip that was never intended to be used as a weapon.

As he traces the tip of the blade on his arm, he speaks, narrating the blood as it drips down to his fingertips.

“My name is Hubert von Vestra.”

His eyes are not red, he notices now as the space between them grows even shorter with the tapping of those fine heeled boots. They are orange in one moment, darkening the next as his ungloved hands raise to hold the back of Hubert’s arm. He lifts the wound, baring it to him openly, and Hubert watches the moment the man’s smile turns mischievous.

“Ferdinand. Ferdinand von Aegir.”

This time, he does not fight as white fangs sink into his skin. He grabs hold of them, embraces those daggers that hold a new word on their edge, and makes an oath to life even as death itself pours something as warm as love into his veins.

**Author's Note:**

> on twitter @dreisang


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